Sugarloaf Cafe is for sale again. But the current owner has big dreams for the historied Highway 74 restaurant

Sugarloaf Cafe, a Highway 74 landmark in Mountain Center, is back on the market again -- for sale, lease or joint venture. The restaurant has changed hands several times since it was first opened as Nightingale's in 1933. This photo was taken in February 2011.(Photo: Desert Sun file pohto)

Sugarloaf Cafe, a landmark restaurant and market on Highway 74 in Pinyon Pines, is back on the market. The current owner, however, is not looking for a buyer, but instead an investor or partner who will help bring in the funds needed to reopen.

Listed by Coldwell Banker in Palm Desert, the property includes the 3,200-square-foot fully remodeled cafe and 1,800-square-foot detached house, both of which sit on 2.47 acres at 70-111 Highway 74.

“If someone is hell bent on buying it, I could sell it at the right price,” said owner Jamie Fibiger, a chef and part-time Mountain Center resident, who would prefer someone to come in as a partner. “To find the right tenant and partner I have to put out there that I am open to all options.”

The cafe, about a 20-minute drive from El Paseo, was last open for about a year, from 2012 to 2013, when it was owned by Tom Costello.

Fibiger moved to the desert in 1995 when he was hired as personal chef to actor and TV personality Merv Griffin at his La Quinta estate.

“I did that for three years before taking a job as private chef to former President (and first lady) Gerald and Betty Ford” in Rancho Mirage for about five years," he said.

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Tom Costello, a contractor, bought the Sugarloaf Cafe in 2011 and spent about a year renovating it before reopening it in 2012. He closed the cafe a year later and put it on the market. Current owner, chef Jamie Fibiger, has listed the Highway 74 landmark for sale, lease or joint venture and hopes for the latter.(Photo: The Desert Sun file photo)

He and his wife currently live full-time in Oceanside where he works for Reser’s Fine Foods. But they also maintain a home in Mountain Center and are in the area most weekends.

In 1995, “while driving my motorcycle up (Highway) 74, I stopped at the Sugarloaf Cafe and was in awe of the view…,” Fibiger said.

The coffee wasn’t great, he said, and vowed to himself that someday he would own the place. That opportunity first arose in when Costello put it on the market. Fibiger lost to someone who offered more money.

A few years later, the property went back on the market and Fibiger became the owner in April 2017.

In the two years since, he also purchased two contiguous parcels – one 12.8 acres with a 784-square-foot house and the other a vacant 2.15 acres.

Initially, all three parcels had belonged to Arthur and Mae Nightingale – who built and started what is now Sugarloaf Cafe.

Looking back

The Nightingales moved to the area from Los Angeles in the early 1930s, buying about 5,000 acres of mountain terrain for $1.50 to $3.10 per acre. They built a cabin at the timberline and later relocated to the warmer, 4,000-foot Pinyon Flat elevation, and their property became known as Rancho del Nightingale.

When Highway 74 – or Pines to Palms Scenic Highway – was being developed, the couple built Nightingale Camp to house the workers.

In 1933, after the highway was completed, the Nightingales opened Nightingale’s cafe and rental cabins. Arthur Nightingale died in 1983. Ultimately, all but 4 acres of the land on which the home where Mae Nightingale lived until her death in 1983, was sold and subdivided.

Now, through Fibiger's purchases, the Nightingale property is again under one ownership.

The cafe and small market has changed hands several times over the years and it’s unknown exactly when it became the Sugarloaf – Sugar Loaf on earlier signs – Cafe.

At its height, the cafe was a stopping point for Highway 74 travelers and a gathering place for Pinyon Pines and Mountain Center residents – whose homes are well spread out. It is featured in a scene from the 1963 comedy, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” where Jimmy Durante is driving his 1957 Ford along the highway.

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Sugarloaf Cafe, a landmark restaurant and market on Highway 74 in Mountain Center, first opened to the public in 1933.(Photo: The Desert Sun file photo)

Before Costello bought the property, it was owned by Alexandria Bickler who had a real estate office in the house. She had shuttered the cafe about three years before Costello bought it in April 2011 – it was weathered and needed extensive work inside and out, starting with a new roof.

Listed with Coldwell Banker Commercial/Lyle & Associates of Palm Desert as “for sale/for lease/or joint venture,” the property is selling for $875,000, including the restaurant and house.

To rent just the restaurant would cost $4,000 per month. The house alone, which includes a real estate office, will rent for $1,500 per month, said Steve Lyle, real estate office CEO and agent for the property.

Lyle believes that with six larger subdivisions in the area, the ideal buyer or partner would reopen the real estate office to run alongside the restaurant as an economic supplement.

The two contiguous lots Fibiger has purchased can also be bought separately.

All three parcels together, totaling more than 17 acres, are priced for sale at more than $1.3 million.

Fibiger’s dream is to not just see the restaurant open again and thriving, but that it be self-sustaining and solar-powered and much of produce grown in a greenhouse on the property.

“Maybe even a few goats to make goat cheese,” he said.

“But I need a partner or investor to help me realize that dream,” he said. “I am confident that with the right partner … we will get this place open and the people will come.”

Desert Sun reporter Sherry Barkas covers Tourism and Families. She can be reached at sherry.barkas@thedesertsun.com or (760) 778-4694. Follow her on Twitter @TDSSherryBarkas